News Release #326

Released to media on November 7, 2000

New Ulm – The diocesan Father Alexander Berghold Memorial Committee has initiated a commitment to the development of a memorial honoring Father Alexander Berghold, first pastor of Holy Trinity Cathedral in New Ulm. Berghold was also the inspiration for the construction of the outdoor shrine marking the 14 stations of the Passion of Christ known as the Way of the Cross.

The centennial anniversary of the shrine is approaching and preparations for its renovation are nearly complete. In addition to finishing the landscaping plan, the Father Alexander Berghold Memorial Committee has turned its efforts toward the placement of a memorial to Berghold with appropriate signage and interpretive information about his work and the Sisters of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ who built the Stations and staffed the Loretto Hospital and the St. Alexander Home for the Aged.

Loretto Park, formerly a beautifully landscaped area at the entrance of the shrine, northwest of the present New Ulm Medical Center, is being restored as the site for the memorial park. The present site shows evidence of an existing park with pathways leading to the entrance of the Way of the Cross. The Committee has aerial photos of the park as it appeared in the late 1930s.

The media is invited to attend a news conference Wednesday, November 8, 2000, at 1:30 p.m., at the Catholic Pastoral Center, New Ulm, where Bishop Raymond A. Lucker will present plans for the development of Loretto Park and the site for the Berghold memorial.

Background on Father Alexander Berghold

Father Alexander Berghold was a pioneer priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul from which the Diocese of New Ulm was formed. A native of Styria, Austria, he had come to this country when he was 26 years old. While a seminarian in the seminary of Groz in Styria, he had been impressed and made aware of the opportunities for priests in the United States by a talk given to students by Father Francis Pierz, the pioneer missionary whose unceasing labor for the Church took place in the area that now makes up most of the St. Cloud diocese as well as vast sections in northern Minnesota. Father Berghold asked that he be considered a candidate for the Diocese of St. Paul. His plea was granted and he with 14 other seminarians arrived in the United States in May of 1864. He was ordained by Bishop Thomas L. Grace on October 26, 1864. His first assignment was at Belle Plaine where he administered to the Catholics in a large area which today includes many parishes.

Even before he came to this country, Father Berghold was interested in the German people who were settling in and around New Ulm. In December of 1863 his interest bore fruit. Bishop Grace made him the first pastor of what would eventually be New Ulm’s Holy Trinity parish where his zeal and untiring work on behalf of the church and the New Ulm community and his labors and achievements are legendary. The Catholic culture and population in the area, which became the Diocese of New Ulm in 1957, would not be what it is today were it not for the efforts of Father Berghold. The most evident and lasting physical contribution of his seven year stay here was Holy Trinity parish and school and the Alexander Hospital and Home.

After becoming embroiled in a controversy with Archbishop Ireland involving among other things, Americanism, German national parishes and the school question, Father Berghold left New Ulm in 1898 and after a lengthy journey through California and Mexico, he pastored for a short time in West New York. However, he returned to the Archdiocese in 1899 and his next appointment was at New Market.

Mention should be made of Father Berghold’s literary endeavors. Besides contributions to periodicals and a guide book to Minnesota, he wrote several books that are considered reliable and informative reading even today; The Indians Revenge (1876), a source book on the Sioux Indians, Prairie Roses (1880), a collection of poems, and Land and People (1892), a journal of his travels and adventures. While at New Market, he wrote and published a booklet entitled Souvenir. It contains a short sketch of the development of the community and parish and a number of pictures. It was written to commemorate the 43rd anniversary of his ordination.

After leaving New Market, Father Berghold acted as chaplain at St. Joseph’s Home for Children in St. Paul until the fall of 1907 when he returned to Styria, Austria. The charming German village of Mooskirchen was his home until his death on November 20, 1918, at the age of 80.